Winry Rockbell Got Married
by AutumnAgain
Summary: It turns out using yourself as a philosopher's stone is bad for your health. Now Winry's husband is dead, and she'll do anything to change things. It doesn't matter how many times she has to start over.
1. Prologue

_A/N: I own nothing. This is just a short prologue with a self-indulgent premise._

"Back again, Alchemist?" asked the Truth. It looked at her with bright blue eyes and a grin too wide to belong on it's too-human face. She'd liked it better as a generic white outline; this was just disconcerting.

Winry Rockbell was sixteen years old, looking into her own adult face. She'd messed up and she knew it, but she couldn't change what she'd done, not really. All she could do was try her best to fix things.

"I want to try again," she said, in a voice that echoed ever so slightly in the whiteness of the Truth's domain. "The same as before: my body for the chance to go back and do it over. Do we have a deal?"

 _("Do we have a deal?" she'd asked, half a lifetime ago. She had grown children, she shouldn't have been trying, but Ed had dropped dead one day because he'd used up his life force doing something heroic and stupid, and he deserved better. Al and May would look after them, and Roy and Riza and Elicia and the others, and just this once she'd needed to do something beyond sit on the sidelines. She'd studied for years to understand the array, talking to May and Al and Scar and slogging through dozens of texts, and on her five hundred and thirty-first attempt she'd finally managed to activate it. She'd faced the Truth and laid out her terms, and she refused to go home empty handed. She was going to save her husband, and Elicia's father, and anyone else she could. The least she could do was try.)_

The thing wearing her body laughed. "Do you really think things will be different this time? You told me you wanted to save your husband, yet here you are. How many times will you do this?"

 _(Mustang and Hawkeye were dead. They'd marked her as a sacrifice the day she panicked and killed Scar by clapping (she hadn't meant to, but she'd been trying to protect Ed, and even if she could do alchemy now she had never really studied it, not enough to be precise), and even though Hoenheim had reversed the circle the rest of them hadn't stood a chance, not with Envy and Pride still around, and Wrath stopping their coup. She'd run off in the chaos and everyone had ignored her. She'd fulfilled her purpose as a sacrifice, and she was useless beyond that. As soon as she was out of eyesight, she'd clapped her hands and activated the only circle she'd ever really studied.)_

"I'll do it as many times as it takes," she said, glaring at the Truth in challenge. "Will you let me?"


	2. Twelve Years Later

_**A/N: still own nothing. Some lines in this chapter are taken from the first episode of Brotherhood.**_

"Go back to Headquarters, Winry!" Ed ordered, as he ran through the streets to take on a rogue alchemist he knew almost nothing about. (Not that she knew more, really, but it was the principle of the thing).

"No way!" she snapped, all three of her souls in perfect agreement. "You need me!"

 _The second time she'd gone back, she'd vowed to do things differently. She would never be as good at alchemy as Ed and Al, but she was stubborn, and even when they were four years old she knew exactly what the consequences of failing were. She nagged the brothers into letting her practice with them, snuck into Hohenheim's study, and stayed up pouring over circles and chemical compositions and philosophical texts. She wasn't as creative or intuitive as Ed, but she was good enough to come with them to learn under Izumi, after what happened to Trisha and her parents._

 _She'd never expected to be able to save them, not really. She couldn't stop plague, and Hohenheim was needed elsewhere, to save everyone else. She couldn't save Scar's family, and there was no way she could convince her parents to turn their back on people who needed their help. She still cried for an hour after she got the news, before setting in to explain exactly what had happened to the younger Winry whose body she shared. She couldn't be distracted by what Scar had done. She had a mission._

"You aren't even in the military!"

"Neither is Al, and you aren't making _him_ stay back."

"You know Al's different. Besides, what if you get hurt and I need someone to fix my automail?"

"If you didn't keep getting it damaged this wouldn't be a problem!"

"He's here," Al interrupted, instantly shushing both blondes.

 _She couldn't stop what happened to Al, either. She loved her boys, but they were just too stubborn. She'd tried to dissuade them the last time, but they were too set on getting their mother back, and she couldn't get Izumi to tell them the consequences without explaining what she'd done. Instead she stood by and watched as they drew the circle that would end their childhoods, offering only a token argument against it. She watched as they activated the circle, saw the eye open and reach out with shadowy hands to rip them apart. She had never seen it from the outside before; it was somehow even worse when she wasn't the victim. She stood for moments or hours before Ed reappeared, sans leg, and glimpse the creature he and Al had created. He seemed to forget that she was there as he screamed for his brother and reactivated the circle to drag his soul back, although she managed to overcome her horror enough to drag the armor closer, to save him at least a little bit of the physical pain. She had patched up his wounds as best she could once Al was relatively safe, and she had been the one to explain what had happened to Granny. When he healed, she was the one to make his automail (even if Granny raised an eyebrow and asked when she'd found the time to learn), and when he left to join the military she'd packed up her kit and followed. She swore that this time would be different, and ignored the Truth's laughter ringing in her head._

Winry's first assessment of Isaac McDougal was that he was completely unstable. She checked her gloves to make sure she was wearing the pair that let her manipulate stone and iron, rather than the ones that let her knit up blood and bone (her specialty was healing alchemy, focused through the Xingese Alkahestry she had learned from May and Al lifetimes ago, because Ed was always getting into fights and too often it wasn't just his automail that got damaged) and told herself that she was just keeping herself from blowing her cover, not trying to avoid the look in his eyes. McDougal charged, destroying Ed's coat, and Winry glared at him.

"I worked hard on that automail!" she yelled, forgetting her fear. (She'd watched her husband die, watched her friends be ripped apart, watched her world end. This man was nothing). "What's wrong with you?"

"Wrong with me?" he bellowed. "Do you even know what this country is up to? What the people you serve are really planning?"

"Do you?" she snarled, stepping closer and lowering her voice so that Ed and Al couldn't hear her. "If you know as much as you think you do, why are you still alive?"

"Winry, get back!" yelled Ed, and she flipped away as the ground exploded into spikes. She cursed him silently - if McDougal knew what was really happening, he could be an asset later. She didn't like the look in his eyes, but surely Scar had been far worse, and she had grown to like and respect him. Still, it didn't look like she would get the chance to talk to him (because if she knew anything about the homunculi, she knew that he wouldn't survive for long past his capture).

The fight didn't take long, not with three alchemists, one of them the legendary Fullmetal. She focused on throwing up walls and redirecting his attacks, letting Ed take the initiative and giving Al space to get creative. Soon enough (too soon, if Winry was honest with herself; she wanted the chance to interrogate him alone) McDougal was subdued, and a handful of soldiers prepared to take him into custody.

"Can I come?" she asked, while Ed was distracted with fixing his coat. "It's probably safer to have an alchemist guarding him, in case he tries anything."

The soldiers agreed, used to her hanging around, and Winry followed them as they marched to the prison.

"You should probably destroy those circles he was working on!" she called over her shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah." Ed waved her off, but he did as she suggested. She knew that soon enough if McDougal tried again he would have to start all over, and he would almost certainly be caught.

" _How was he planning to activate them?"_ asked Winry's youngest soul. " _There are too many for one person to use, unless…"_ She trailed off as all three arrived at the same conclusion.

"Hand it over, McDougal," she ordered. The guards looked at her in confusion, but kept quiet. She was thankful for that.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you have a Philosopher's Stone," she snarled, directly in his ear. "Where is it?" McDougal only smirked at her. "Hold him still," she ordered the soldiers. "And be careful. He still has his transmutation circles, and an amplifier." The soldiers obeyed, and Winry rummaged quickly through his pockets to find the small, red stone. She backed away and stared at it for a moment: other than Hohenheim, she'd never really seen one up close before. This was the thing Ed and Al had spent years searching for, the thing they had sworn never to use after learning the truth. She slipped it into her pocket. "Please don't tell Ed about this. He worries so much." She glared at McDougal challengingly. "If you try anything, I will kill you. Let's go. I have some questions I want to ask you."


	3. (Bad) Decisions

_**A/N: What's an update schedule? Warning: brief mild(?) body horror. You'll be able to tell when it's coming. Also, this is about the last coherent and chronological segment I have written; the Liore chapter still needs some wrangling, and I haven't really planned out what I'm doing from there beyond some fragments that take place much later. So be prepared to watch me vanish into the ether for an extended period of time. Sorry.**_

McDougal was useless. He knew a little, enough to tell that there was more to what had happened in Ishval than military high command had told, and maybe he even suspected the nationwide transmutation circle, but talking to him was impossible. Like she'd noticed when she first encountered him, he was completely unstable, and he had no concept of subtlety. After nearly an hour of wheedling she'd given him up for a lost cause and left the jail.

"You get anything out of that?" asked the guard that she had a sneaking suspicion was really Envy in disguise. She couldn't prove it, but he'd insisted on sticking with her, even after sending the others away, and he'd seemed just a little too interested in McDougall's answers. It wasn't like she could do anything if he was; she'd never studied flame alchemy or learned Doctor Marcoh's array to destroy a philosopher's stone. Instead she scoffed.

"He's crazier than Ed, and without the talent to back it up. Those conspiracy theories are less believable than the rumors about Mustang being the Fuhrer's secret love child." She shook her head. "This whole thing was a waste of my time."

He let her leave unmolested, and she hoped that she'd been convincing enough to keep the homunculi from looking at her too closely. Right now, she was just the mechanic and low-level alchemist who followed Fullmetal around in case he broke something. She wanted to keep that cover as long as she could; her being underestimated could be the difference between life and death for her boys.

She started to head back to Hughes' apartment, where she was staying while in Central, before thinking of the stone in her pocket and changing her course. She needed air, and time to think.

She couldn't keep the stone on her; she couldn't risk having it lost or stolen. Hiding it wasn't an option either; she didn't have anywhere she could keep it where no one would stumble across it by accident. Mustang or his team would find it at headquarters, Hughes or his wife in their apartment, Granny at home, and Ed or Al in her luggage. She couldn't tell them about it, because they would try to use it and hate themselves when they discovered the truth. It was her job to protect them, even from themselves. (Maybe especially from themselves).

She could go out and use it up, but it felt like a waste to let the souls trapped inside die for nothing. They had the right to get revenge on those who had hurt them, to help take down the homunculi once and for all.

She thought of Hohenheim and made her decision.

Winry pulled up her hood to cover her bright hair, and made her way to an alley in a non-residential part of town. It was late enough that the shops would be closed, and she could probably get away with what she wanted to do without being interrupted. Just in case, she transmuted stone walls to seal off the alleyway and grant her privacy from anyone walking by.

Preparations complete, she reached out to one wall and transmuted a sharp, thin blade. (" _Are we sure about this?_ " a part of her asked. " _This isn't something we can take back._ " " _What if Ed and Al find out?_ " asked another part. " _They'll hate us._ " " _We need to do this,_ " she retorted. " _This is our best option._ ") Resolved, she rolled up her sleeve and sliced the blade along her arm. (" _Last chance to back out._ " " _This is a terrible plan._ " " _I know what I'm doing._ ") She didn't, really, and she knew that, but she'd made her decision. She took the stone from her pocket and pressed it against the cut.

"Please work," she prayed aloud. She didn't know what she would do if it didn't work.

For a moment, nothing happened, then the stone melted into her blood and Winry Rockbell experienced true agony.

This was worse than being unmade, worse than the Truth, worse than watching her friends die and knowing she was helpless to save them. This was something unnatural, wrong, sick, and her souls clung together to keep from being lost in the maelstrom. Every bone in her body broke and healed, her muscles tore themselves apart, and as she fell to the ground, convulsing, all she could see was red.

She came to slowly, lying on the ground of the alleyway. She hoped that Mister Hughes wouldn't worry; she'd called to tell him that she was taking a walk to clear her head before leaving the prison, but she had no idea how much time had passed since then. She pulled herself to her feet and looked herself over. She was physically intact, no broken bones, even the cut on her arm healed. She transmuted part of the wall into a mirror and looked herself over. Still blonde, eyes still blue, no new tattoos that she could see. That was good; it would be hard to explain something like that to Ed and Al. Finally, reluctantly, she checked her souls.

All three were still there and intact, but instead of a white mindscape they were now defined against a background of red, with the occasional wailing soul flying past. There weren't many of them, comparatively - the stone had been small to begin with, and mostly used up by the time she'd found it - but she hadn't really been prepared for even a mere dozen foreign souls sharing space in her head. She wondered how Ling and Hohenheim had managed without going mad. She thought back to her interactions with them, and decided that maybe they hadn't.

" _Hello?_ " she called reluctantly, all three souls in tandem. " _Can any of you understand me?_ " The wailing didn't stop, exactly, but she thought that she sensed a bit of interest. " _My name is Winry Rockbell. This is my body. I want to… I want to help you get revenge on the people who trapped you like this. Bring them to justice. I know you don't have any reason to trust me, but I promise I want to help you, as much as I can. My parents were doctors in the war; I won't use you without permission. What was done to you… it was horrible, and wrong, and I want to help, however I can. Just, if you want to talk, I'll listen._ " The souls kept wailing, and she reluctantly turned her attention away from them to walk back to the Hughes' apartment and formulate her excuses. Winry Rockbell, plus twelve Ishvalan souls, returned to her life.


End file.
